There are more human beings alive today then any other point in history. The mass scale of industry just will keep going, and, as Baruch says, unless a natural disaster occurs that cuts humanity in half, it won't stop. Of course the irony there is a natural disaster will occur regardless.

There are more human beings alive today then any other point in history. The mass scale of industry just will keep going, and, as Baruch says, unless a natural disaster occurs that cuts humanity in half, it won't stop. Of course the irony there is a natural disaster will occur regardless.

The natural tendency of systems is to overshoot or undershoot. This is bad for us and for the environment. We have come close to extinction before ... due to ice ages, giant volcanic eruptions, mega drought. We really shouldn't add "human caused" to that equation.

The natural tendency of systems is to overshoot or undershoot. This is bad for us and for the environment. We have come close to extinction before ... due to ice ages, giant volcanic eruptions, mega drought. We really shouldn't add "human caused" to that equation.

Well we're overdue for another iceage, theres a super volcano thats not yet erupted, and a solar burst from the sun could happen at random, so really lets place our bets.

I mean heres the thing with large scale natural disasters, when they happened in the past, from meteors crashing, to earthquakes, to tsunamis, to volcanoes, it wasn't as devastating as the scale it would be today, just based on statistics of population growth, the next major disaster will kill from thousands to millions.

There are more human beings alive today then any other point in history. The mass scale of industry just will keep going, and, as Baruch says, unless a natural disaster occurs that cuts humanity in half, it won't stop. Of course the irony there is a natural disaster will occur regardless.

Unfortunately, gutting the industrial output of the planet by 50% isn't in the cards, except by global war. That is how we got rid of industrial over-capacity last time ;-(

I'm pretty sure that a global war would have the factories working overtime and war tends to not be very environmentally-friendly overall. So, that's not a solution, much less a good one.

And cutting industrial output by 50% right off the bat is unfeasibly large even if it could be implemented.

But there are other options. Phasing out coal/oil/natural gas in favor of green energy sources (solar, wind, hydro, thermal), family planning (slow down global population growth in an ethical way), innovations in fuel efficiency, the ever-decreasing costs of solar panels, etc. Despite all the bad news, progress has been made in the fight against global warming, just in a piecemeal way.

Even simple stuff like mass transit/carpooling, going easy on the thermostat, replacing incandescent light bulbs with more energy-efficient LED bulbs, and keeping your car's tires pumped up helps.

Ideally, such efforts buy enough time for new technologies to hit the market to further improve the situation. We just have to put forth the effort to keep a bad situation from growing worse and weather the storm until it dies down.

That or humanity could go extinct, victims of our own shortsightedness. I dunno about you guys, but that first option sounds a lot better to me.

Also, I'm pretty sure that war would have the factories working overtime and war tends to be not very environmentally-friendly overall. So, that's not a solution, much less a good one.

And cutting industrial output by 50% right off the bat is indefeasibly large even if it could be implemented.

But there are other options. Phasing out coal/oil/natural gas in favor of green energy sources (solar, wind, hydro, thermal), family planning (slow down global population growth in an ethical way), innovations of fuel efficiency, and the ever-decreasing costs of solar panels. Despite all the bad news, gains have been made in the fight against global warming, just in a piecemeal way.

Even simple stuff like mass transit/carpooling, going easy on the thermostat, replacing incandescent bulbs to more energy-efficient LED bulbs, and keeping your car's tires pumped up helps.

Ideally, such efforts buy enough time for new technologies to hit the market to further improve the situation. We just have to put the effort in to keep a bad situation from growing worse and weather the storm until it comes to a stop.

That or we could all die, victims of our own shortsightedness. I dunno about you guys, but that first option sounds a lot better to me.

But WHERE is that 50% figure coming from. It seems like a rectal extraction...